Hi-Fi amp recommendation


Hi And thanks for reading this thread.
I am looking for a hi-fi transistor amp with good sound quality. There is stuff coming out of china, some with a bad reputation some with good.Have you heard anything about the good ones, can you give me any pointers in the right direction, have you maybe purchased an amp, are there any bargains to be had.Sorry for such a broad ranging question, any advice is appreciated. I already have a decent denon amp which cost me £1000, am wanting to get something better than that, something really top end.
I saw some good feedback on dartzeel boards and dartzeel full constructed amps, can you tell me if you tried any of these, if so what are the results. Any sound quality opinons or long term reliability issues.

Many thanks.
johnny121

Showing 3 responses by peterzuerich

Hi Johnny, I have Naim Nap 200 Clone amps. They look good and really have good sound. I had an original Naim 5is, and the clone was better especially in bass, but also high voices were softer/cleaner! 

If you enter on aliexpress.com Naim Nap 200 you should find it. I have the black one with the blue light button in the front. They also have Naim Preamps, i would espect they are also great. I saw weeks ago that they have now also a Nap250 or evel Nap300. I expect they are all great.  

If somebody asks if the quality is the same like with a real 2000-3000 EUR amp, I would say no. I have now also a Primare A32 wirh 2x400 Watts and its better especially with my speaker which ask for 250 Wats minimum. But the Nap is really good as well, and perfect for the price of i guess 400 USD delivered. 



i payed 1200€ for the Naim 5si.

this is the clone Nap 200 and i see its about 200€ + shipment + tax, so might be 300 at the end. sound characteristic is really similar to the 5si, classical Naim sound. this one just has more power, better control in bass, deeper, and better clarity and cleaner highs. 
http://s.aliexpress.com/6vYnQrQJ

I was only driving small B&W PM1 speaker, but i felt an improvement! If you have a floor standing speaker, bass will be out of control with an 5si, and then you feel the improvement much more with the Nap 200. did the test on some B&W 683. 

But to be honest, once we switched to a Rotel 1552, bass became better then the Nap 200. A funny successful trial was to skip the preamp and control the rotel with a simple sonos connect. works absolutely perfect and reliable! really a simple soluion if you like streaming spotify. you can even limit the max output in the app.